Many individuals with a mobility impairment use mobility aids or devices to assist with walking or to otherwise improve their mobility. This is especially true with respect to the elderly population, whose members are often afflicted with medical and/or physical infirmities that affect their ability to walk without aid and/or to bend over to pick up an object lying on the ground. Conventional mobility equipment like canes, crutches, and walkers are widely used to enable individuals with limited mobility to move around without assistance from others. For example, individuals that require additional stability while walking typically use canes and/or walking sticks. When more comprehensive mobility assistance is required—like for patients recuperating from an accident or individuals having limited mobility on account of disability or due to medical conditions for example—devices such as crutches and/or walkers are employed.
While conventional mobility devices provide balance and support to facilitate mobility, they generally offer little assistance with respect to picking up an object that is out of reach, such as off of the ground. For this purpose, conventional reaching aids—such as reachers or grabbers—have been developed to assist people in reaching and retrieving hard-to-reach items without bending over, stooping or stretching. Many reaching aids are also suitable for those individuals who are unable to produce a significant grip.
It is not uncommon for individuals who experience mobility impairment to also have difficulty with bending over to pick up an object that is out of reach. The use of conventional reaching aids in conjunction with conventional mobility aids is problematic as an individual must put aside their mobility device to operate the reaching aid. For example, certain walking canes that include a means for converting the cane into a tool for grasping are known. However, these devices require the individual to stand without the support of the cane in order to use the grasping functionality of the device. Accordingly, conventional devices do not satisfy the combined needs of individuals with respect to providing concurrent stability/mobility and reaching assistance. A device is needed that is capable of effectively providing mobility support while concurrently making a reaching aid conveniently accessible and available to the user. Furthermore, these devices should be durable and easy to manipulate such that a user is not required to exert undue force or dexterity in order to access and/or store the reaching aid functionality thereof.